Shedding Divestments

Mainline churches invest billions on behalf of their retired employees. Should they punish Israel for its occupation of the West Bank by selling stock in companies that do business in Israel or are accused of de facto support for the occupation? The Episcopal Church considers the question at its triennial General Convention this week and next in Indianapolis. Our bishop in Los Angeles, Jon Bruno, opposes divestment and boycotts, as does Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. From Indianapolis, Matthew Davies surveys all the pending proposals for the Episcopal News Service:

Jefferts Schori visited Israel and the West Bank in 2008. Asked about divestment, she told ENS in a recent interview that the Christian tradition “generally has not been to shun people. It has been to call people to greater engagement … and relationship, and I think that is especially needed in the land of the Holy One right now.”

During an Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles gathering in March, Jefferts Schori urged Episcopalians to “invest in legitimate development in Palestine’s West Bank and in Gaza” rather than focus on divestment or boycotts of Israel.

If people have particular concerns about corporations’ policies, she told ENS, “then positive engagement would mean to become a shareholder and go to a shareholders meeting and challenge the administration of the corporation. It’s a positive response rather than a negative one.”

By a narrow margin, our Presbyterian brothers and sisters said no to divestment yesterday at their biennial meeting in Pittsburgh.

Meaning And Mechanism

TEC's presiding bishop (and presiding oceanographer) Katharine Jefferts Schori is featured on the Huffington Post talking about science and religion. Science is about mechanism, while faith is about ultimate meaning, she says; using both views at once gives us "better depth perception."

Episcopal Equinimity

The presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, along with the bishops of Los Angeles and Jerusalem, opposes anti-Israel divestment and boycotts.

All About The Clothes, Even When It's Not

Instapundit spotted and featured this site, "Bad Vestments," which means that the political color for the moment is libertarian true blue. The site itself features photographs of lavish, odd, or, if I may, ugly liturgical clothing being worn by priests and bishops. The site's recurrent theme is "because Christian worship is not supposed to be about you." As far as I can see, its creator doesn't identify her- or himself, so one can only speculate about the coloration of their theological views. One hint is the persistent references to the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, as Mrs. Schori, a commonplace on theologically conservative blogs, where some find her views objectionable and others, her gender, at least insofar as its being fit for the episcopacy is concerned.

No question that the site is a hoot. Yet ridicule is a questionable activity for Christians (mea culpa, he quickly adds), anonymous ridicule* even more so. It's in the paradox of Christ that when we fault others for acting as though it's all about them, it can mean that it's all about us. If the authors of "Bad Vestments" have an idol, it's liturgical exactitude. Like two of the folksingers in "A Mighty Wind," we prayer book-thumping Christians are tempted to worship color -- purple for Lent and the impending season of Advent, white for Christmas and Easter (and weddings and funerals), red for Pentecost (think the tongues of fire as the Holy Spirit descended on the church).

Many of the priests and bishops depicted at "Bad Vestments" are thinking well outside the basic Crayola box. One smiling bishop is arrayed in cathedral stone gray, which doesn't show up on any of the liturgical calendars I've seen. As for ordinary time, or, as some say, "after Pentecost," the long season between Trinity Sunday and Advent, green is called for, but surely not lime green, Holy Father. And yet what's the matter with a little variety within the confines of those all-too-familiar basic color groups? Suggesting it has to be a certain green is akin to arguing that God prefers the King James Version of the Bible.

To be fair, "Bad Vestments" doesn't seem to be making such a restrictive point. Creative is one thing. Hideous is, of course, another. The site's other targets are we pastors whose raiment sometimes screams, "Please look at me, and get ready for a homily about where this bizarre rig came from." As a matter of fact, I have some stoles (the long strips of colored cloth, a vestige of Roman senators' garb, that priests wear around their necks) that people have given me or that are meaningful for some other reason. This especially applies to those I've brought home from two Holy Land pilgrimages. The red stole shown here, a treasured gift from the Altar Guild of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul in the Diocese of Los Angeles, prevented me from being the most inconspicuously dressed new priest in recent history at my ordination in January 2004, for which I'd neglected to order a custom-made chasuble as my beloved colleagues had.

It makes me feel good to wear these items, and sometimes I'm tempted to talk about them during sermons, but I rarely if ever do. I'm not sure why. And then's there's the issue of wearing our own vestments at all. Before almost every service, and especially on Sunday, I remember advice from my mentor, the Rev. Canon Mark Shier, now enjoying the first months of a well-earned retirement as rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. A priest of God for over a third of a century, he had a sacristy drawer full of personal vestments that he wore for weekday services but almost never on Sundays. He told me that that it gives the congregation pleasure and perhaps even some comfort to see their priest wearing a stole from the same set, as the Altar Guild would say, as what they see on the altar and the ambo (the liturgically correct term for lectern).

Yesterday at St. John's, our church was dressed in white to help us remember Christ the King on the last Sunday in Pentecost. We don't get to wear white all that much, so I was tempted to reach for a white and gold stole from the heart of old Jerusalem, the handiwork of Sami Barsom, a Syriac Orthodox tailor I met in 2007. I've worn it often enough on Sundays that it's soaked in the water of a score of baptisms. But just before the first service began this week, for whatever reason I heard my teacher's voice, so I wore the beautiful white St. John's house stole instead. Yep. I matched. Even when it's not about the clothes, it is.

*Mea maxima culpa, because each post, I now see, is signed by Christopher Johnson. Sorry about that, brother.

Blunting The Islamification Of Christianity

The New York Times on Saturday's Vatican meeting between Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams:

[Williams]...questioned why the longstanding dialogue between the religions had foundered over the question of female clergy.

Here's why, your Grace. The pope's brazen move to convert British Anglican priests who oppose female bishops is an obvious sign that he considers the Roman Catholic Church's misogynist ecclesiology to be its leading missionary edge. Because it marginalizes women to say they shouldn't be bishops or priests (or pastors, as most U.S. evangelical Protestants still do). It devalues women to say that they aren't pure enough to do sacramental work. It insults women to claim that they are a lessor order of humanity, as Gen. 2 seems to teach, though Gen. 1:27 does not (which notion of creation have you been taught and do you prefer -- woman made as an afterthought from man's rib or male and female created simultaneously in God's image?). It cuts women off from the grace of God itself to say that God and our LORD Jesus Christ view them as less worthy to preach and teach and bless and absolve in their holy names.

Treating women that way in the church either makes sense to one, or it doesn't. It evidently still makes sense to Benedict, but my guess is that, deep down, it doesn't make complete sense even to young American Roman Catholics, both male and female. And it no longer makes sense to most in the Episcopal Church, which has had female priests since the 1970s and now has a female presiding bishop, nor to ++Rowan, who favors the British Anglican church eventually ordaining women as bishops.

So how long are we reportedly besieged, marginal, so-called progressive Christians -- especially those who believe that Jesus Christ's radical and reckless love extends to male and female followers, apostles, and priests in precisely equal, which is to say infinite, measure -- going to continue acting so defensive? How long are we going to let Christians whose view of women tends to mirror Islam's have the upper hand in the church and especially in the news media, which largely dictate how secular society views people of faith?

Precisely as long as we continue to let our critics get away with pretending the great debate is about something else entirely. So-called orthodox conservatives like to say the church is mainly having an argument about the authority of scripture and the role of gay and lesbian people. It behooves them to do so to distract the attention of the half of the human race about whom Christendom is truly convulsed. Will or will not the relatively small minority of Christians who are absolutely right on this issue finally be able to stand up for women and blunt the Islamification of Christianity?

Boss And Big Boss

That's Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Archbishop of Canterbury Roman Williams (center, with beard), preparing for ++Rowan's evening talk at General Convention.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

At Our Altars, Men And Women Do The Dishes

Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, surmises that, at least in non-western cultures, assumptions about males' authority over females contribute to concerns about homosexuality:

The most intriguing conversation I had [when Anglican primates met recently] in Alexandria [in Egypt] was with a primate who asked how same-sex couples partition "roles." He literally asked if one was identified as the wife and one as the husband, and then wanted to know which one promised to obey the other in the marriage ceremony. Several of us explained that marriage in the West is most often understood as a partnership of equals, and has been for some time.

Those of you with a few more years on you may remember that the marriage service in the 1928 (and earlier versions) of the Book of Common Prayer did indeed have language about the wife obeying her husband. It's pertinent here to note that the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer is still the norm in many provinces of the Anglican Communion, and it uses the same kind of language about obeying in the marriage service.

As I traveled from the airport to the hotel where we met, I noticed that almost every woman on the street past childhood was veiled, with at least her hair covered with a scarf, and in a not-small number of cases, covered head to toe in a long, flowing garment. I even observed a couple of women whose coverings were so thorough that I couldn't even see a slit for their eyes -- the fabric must have been thin enough for them to see through, but not for others to see in. The hotel had only a handful of female employees, mostly professional women who worked behind the desk. Only a couple of them wore no scarf.

The striking thing was that the meeting room where the primates' deliberations took place, the hotel's largest and principal conference room, was bedecked with several large paintings of half-naked women. It was a space that, in normal circumstances, apparently was used only by men. I found it striking that public expectations of women are modest dress and covering, yet there is evidently a rather different attitude toward men's entertainment.

These complex and conflicting gender expectations have something significant to do with attitudes there and in other parts of the world toward male homosexuality. The greatest difficulty in many cultures, including parts of North American society, is the perception that one of the partners in such a union must be acting like a woman -- and that is most definitely not a socially desirable status!

Katharine Jefferts Schori Talks To Sally Quinn

Hat tip to Mark Shier

Sacred Science

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori offers a scientist's take on the issues dividing the Episcopal Church:

Jefferts Schori said science informs everything from how she interprets the Bible to her views on homosexuality—two subjects that now embroil her church and the larger Anglican Communion.

“I think it’s pretty clear from scientific studies that homosexuality, particularly male homosexuality, has got a significant component that is determined before birth,” she said. “It is, at least from a theological perspective, part of the created order. ... It’s the church’s job to help people live holy lives however they’ve been created, and sexuality is part of our creation.”

But conservatives argue that her progressive views stray far from traditional Christianity. Since her election, four Episcopal dioceses and dozens of parishes—still angry over the 2003 election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire—have seceded.

“She’s continued the trajectory that was already established,” said Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, who led his diocese to leave the Episcopal Church last October. “The Episcopal Church has moved progressively away from classical Christianity and mainstream Anglicanism.”

Channeling Lincoln

Here's the closing prayer from today's National Cathedral service by Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church:

On this radiant day we give thanks to you, O God,
for the freedom to gather united in prayer.
Strengthen and sustain Barack, our President,
that in the days to come he may lead your people
with confidence and compassion.
Grant patience and perseverance to the people of this Nation.
With malice toward none, with charity for all,
may we strive to finish the work you have given us to do
that we may achieve a just and lasting peace.
In this time of new beginnings, new ventures, and new visions,
light in us the fire of justice, and the passion for forgiveness.
Give us the strength to hold fast to what is good
that we may go forth renewed and committed to make hope a reality. Amen.

Drawn in part from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

Nobody Does It Better

Hello, boss! That's the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, next to the Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, as he opens this morning's prayer service for President Obama.

The Rev. Otis Moss Jr., who gave the stirring opening prayer, showed how to talk about Jesus Christ in an interfaith setting, saying, "O LORD, our strength and our Redeemer," and praying "in the name of our LORD."

Moving as one, the cathedral's acolytes carried the cross of Christ and candles up the aisle like none in the world -- except at St. John's!

Katharine The Calming

I met the boss on Friday -- the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the first woman to hold the position and the first to serve as an Anglican primate (the head of a national or regional church). Raised in Pensacola, Florida, Katharine was trained as an oceanographer before she became a priest and, eventually, bishop of Nevada. She was elected presiding bishop in 2006.

As Episcopalians prepare to come to Anaheim from all over the country next summer for our next general convention, she spent this weekend in Riverside at the annual convention of the Diocese of Los Angeles. Katharine celebrated Holy Eucharist, preached, lectured about women's empowerment, and answered questions from the floor about Sunday School and social justice.

The location of next year's national convention notwithstanding, the church she leads, troubled by a fresh schism, isn't exactly the happiest place on earth. An entity calling itself "the Anglican Church in North America," which believes women can't be bishops and gays and lesbians should also have limited access to the church's sacramental work, was launched the week before our Riverside convention began. The 1,000 churches forming the wannabe new province include tiny congregations which left years ago over one ancient beef or another, such as the Episcopal Church ordaining women to the priesthood or adopting a new version of The Book Of Common Prayer.

The group hopes to achieve official recognition in the worldwide Anglican Communion through the support of similarly inclined Anglicans in South America, Africa, and elsewhere. Not likely, Katharine says:

"The Anglican Communion has never formed a province based upon theological perspectives," she said. "It's always on the basis of geography, and the need to present the Gospel in another part of the world."...

Jefferts Schori said there was no need to form the breakaway province. The Anglican Communion has always embraced vigorous debate, she said.

"We think it's important to have a diversity of opinion within one body," she said. "God gives us people who disagree with each other for a reason. As long as they're willing to be at the table together, worshiping, being in dialogue together, being in mission together, then we have something very important to give each other. But when some decide to leave, that process is broken down."

Regrettably, when it comes to church schisms, broken processes usually stay broken. Today most Episcopalians are proud that our outpost of catholicism with a small "c" ordains women, taking to heart St. Paul's dictum that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28). The new prayer book is now the familiar, beloved 30-year-old prayer book. It's hard to imagine that it ever gave offense. Yet while a few who left the church over those issues may have drifted back from schismatic parishes, most didn't. Most of those leaving today over homosexuality may also be gone forever.

In a way, schismatics solve a problem for a mother church by marginalizing themselves. But there is no victory, there are no winners, and there is nothing but sadness in God's heart when people of faith turn away from one another.

Amid all this turmoil, during her two days among members of the six-county Los Angeles diocese Katharine made friends and inspired confidence with her quiet eloquence and non-anxious (dare one say Obamian?) temperament. To some of her fellow Anglican primates, including those who refused even to kneel next to her to take Holy Eucharist, her election was an abomination, an affront to Jesus Christ because of her gender. These are Christians who believe God and the Bible prescribe a hierarchy among human beings. While keeping her heart open to them as well as TEC's domestic critics, Katharine also reminds us that there is much work to do building the realm of God -- empowering women, combating poverty, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, the widow, the orphan, and bringing people to Christ in mission and service.

Reflecting in a homily on the Advent call to make straight in the desert a highway for God, Katherine counseled laypeople, deacons, priests, and her fellow bishops to tend the stretches of road we may find closest to us. It was a blessing to get to know our chief highway superintendent. Our church is in good hands indeed.